


Movement

by Davechicken



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: A sleepy demon. A watchful angel.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 95





	Movement

Crowley always looked like he was on the verge of movement, if you ever saw him still. His seated self was a moment of pouring, waterfalling, paused but on the brink of slinking into action. 

Standing, he wound, coiled, drawing orbital systems and dances beyond anyone’s hearing but his own. Head bobbing, eyes flicking. Hips taking up room as he walked, as if he thought he needed to make up for the narrowness of his frame by claiming everything around him.

For someone so still as Aziraphale, it could - at times - be maddening. Fingers drumming on tables when he wanted to relax. The flash of a knee jiggling caught in the periphery of his vision. A reminder that - although Aziraphale might find rest and repose easy - his companion usually did not.

It could have come from anywhere, really. It could just be who Crowley was, deep down.

It could have been Hell, with the fear that one day they’d catch up to him. It could have been Heaven, having caught up with him first. It could have been Humanity, with their dislike of snakes (entirely unwarranted) and aversion to some of his more… unusual features… 

Or it could have been something else, entirely.

But he jittered. And jolted. And was always on the verge of launching off like that car of his, a speed that should be break-neck, but never seemed to hurt him.

It’s been better, recently. Not often, but enough. A post-meal, sluggish satisfaction. The lull of alcohol turning the swaying into rhythm, and bleeding out some of the urgency or nerves. Maybe he’d stretch out on a couch, or loll against a bookshelf, and turn his face, cat-like, to the sun. 

Small moments of peace, which the angel cultivated like you would a pearl. No - not right - a pearl needed a little agitation. If anything, that was the angel himself.

So… Crowley? A difficult seedling, perhaps. A blossom needing just the right amount of shelter, the right amount of everything, in order to thrive. So he looked for the minutes, and spread invisible wings to buffer away potential gusts or wafts of unease. Put what he could into giving the demon a moment to relax, to enjoy just existing. 

By far the most successful attempts were these, though. Lazy mornings. After long, and affectionate nights. Crowley enjoyed sleeping after, and Aziraphale was happy to indulge him. More for this, than for himself.

Eyes closed, and moving only slowly beneath his lids. No outward sign of the scorch of brimstone and hellfire when he slept. His tart lips slack of sneer, or smirk, or any lie to hide his truths behind. The muscles soft, the jaw dropped. 

Around the curtains, light stole into the room, washing like watercolours over the fixtures and fittings, giving an otherworldly glow. Almost day, and no longer night. That strange, liminal place where you could extend the gap simply by refusing to rise. 

Crowley’s stark, bright hair feathered over pale pillows, and Aziraphale ran one finger-tip over the dusting of it. He remembered it longer, and mourned the fact he’d never seen it fan out at full length. Never really combed through the coils, felt it run between his fingers. To touch, stroke… tug… maybe he would ask if he’d grow it again. Surely it must be fashion, and if it wasn’t, Crowley could make it so. He was quite sure that the demon could make everyone dress his way, if he only allowed himself to think for his pleasure, and not for camouflage. 

He didn’t need to hide. Not any more. Indeed, perhaps they should both change a little? He might suggest it, when the demon woke.

One arm was bent up and under the pillow, only the fingertips visible over the top. His other slung down past his hips, whilst one leg burrowed into the sheets and the other had found the surface, perversely defying any rules of propriety. Always one foot in one camp, and the other somewhere else.

Boxes, it seemed, were for punching holes through to make into bigger boxes with the ones next to them. 

And yet, after all the nocturnal squirming and worming, he’d settled. At some point, his dreams would cause his limbs to move again, and he’d flip and fold and stretch and… flop. Strings cut, and a body entirely at rest. 

He was beautiful, when he was peaceful, but it was a kind of beauty that you could only admire for a short time. It couldn’t last forever, and it shouldn’t, either. 

Crowley was movement. He was energy and ideas and solutions and complaints. He was bouncing from one thing to the next. He was the spark of Creation as much as anything Aziraphale had ever known. To cage him, to charm him into eternal rest would be to end him, to take the vital part of him and break it.

So he kissed his forehead, and squeezed his hand, and beamed down at the eyes that peered up. He would sleep, and refresh, and then zig and zag his way through the universe with an angel with the inclination to reclining dragged in his wake.

You needed a bit of both, if truth be told.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Angel,” Crowley replied, already reaching to hold him.

Lazy movement was still movement. The day didn’t need full tilt just yet.


End file.
